


Bottled Up Emotions

by PandaWritesPoorly



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Bottled up emotions, Emotions, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21563110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandaWritesPoorly/pseuds/PandaWritesPoorly
Summary: Sure, Patton said he wouldn't bottle up his emotions anymore, but that's easier said than done.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	Bottled Up Emotions

**Author's Note:**

> I've been planning on writing something for Sanders Sides eventually. Finally got around to it, and I hope to do more. Just one shots, I only want one chaptered story at a time for now.

Patton woke up with a start. He can’t remember what the dream was about, but it must have been a nightmare, given that he can feel the all too familiar feeling of another bottle filling up.

He knows he promised he’d stop hiding how he feels, but that was about _Thomas’_ emotions.

Not his own.

No time to dwell on it anyways! He has to make breakfast!

Rushing to the kitchen, he decides to make pancakes. He knows the recipe by heart (heh, by _heart)_ so that means none of that pausing to double-check sort of moment.

Pausing gives him time to dwell on the bottles.

Pancakes are fun anyways! He can make cat ones!

“Hey Pop-star.” Virgil enters the kitchen, taking a seat at the counter as he scrolls through tumblr.

“Hi Virgil!” Patton slips him a plate of pancakes, receiving a smile in return as thanks.

It doesn’t take too much longer for him to finish off the batter. In that time, Logan and Roman have come down for their breakfast, debating as they eat.

Patton hasn’t eaten yet, so he sits to do so. Virgil has moved to the couch, headphones on and the others are obviously distracted, so he eats in silence.

He can’t help but notice the dripping of the sink.

It’s been like that for a while, but it’s really getting to him now.

It’s just-

_Drip_

So-

_Drip_

Aggravating.

Normally he’d be able to ignore it, but little things like that have really been getting to him recently.

Now he has a headache. Again.

A bottle of frustration fills up. Anger too, because otherwise he’ll snap at one of his famILY members, and he really doesn’t want that.

Last he checked, there wasn’t much room left for more emotions. He’ll have to grab some bottles in a moment. Sure, he can expand his room all he wants, but objects being created out of thin air is for _Roman._

So stealing random bottles from old memories it is. Thomas won’t notice.

Neither will anyone else, not if he can help it.

He’s perfectly fine.

As he stands, he grabs some ibuprofen. Looking through memories won’t be helped by a headache.

“Another headache, Padre?” Roman notices him swallowing the pills.

“Yeah.” he shrugs sheepishly.

“You’ve been havin’ a lot of those recently. You good, Pat?” Virgil shifts his headphones, peering at him with more concern than usual.

Another bottle of guilt.

“I’m purr-fectly fine!” he pumps his voice full of cheer and waves with a sleeve of the hoodie around his shoulders.

“Perhaps I should look into the cause of this. It seems peculiar for the frequency of your headaches to have increased so noticeably.” Logan observes calmly, refusing to acknowledge the pun.

“I’m fine Lo’!” he moves to the stairs as he speaks, “Really guys! I’ll just use today to clean up my room a little! A little headache never stopped me!”

That’s a good reason for him to be upstairs. They don’t need to know about his memory searches. Besides, he _is_ going to his room momentarily, just to see how much space is left in the closet anyways.

Still, a bottle of anxiety for the half-truth. He hopes they don’t decide to check on him while he’s going through the closet or that they realize he’s been keeping things from them.

Great, now he’s dwelling on it. That means he’s still feeling it. _Another_ bottle for that. He’s really on a roll today, huh?

* * *

Virgil is worried. Nothing new, but it’s _more_ than usual.

So something is probably wrong. It started with Patton having _another_ headache this morning. What if something’s wrong with him?

He thought that’d been all of it, but no. As the fatherly side was on his way up, Virgil felt a clear pang of anxiety from him. Gone as soon as it arrived.

 _Too_ soon.

Then it returned, but again, it was gone just as quickly as it came.

He spends a few moments debating things internally. Sure he’s worried, but as he’s said, that’s nothing new, and he really hates to be an annoyance.

At the same time, if he doesn’t check on Patton he’ll only get even _more_ concerned, and then he’d get fidgety, and someone would notice, and then they’d be concerned and or they’d think he’s weird, and either way they’ll probably-

Nope. No time for that. Checking on Patton time.

He stands, slipping his headphones onto his neck, and makes his way up the stairs.

Knocking on Patton’s door, he peeks in as it opens at his touch.

“Patton? Are you in here? I wanted to talk…” he trails off. The room is empty, but his closet is open.

That’s always been shut. Maybe he’s in there? It could be bigger than it looks.

Patton probably wouldn’t get mad at him for entering his room right? Patton has told him to come in whenever he wants, but maybe he was just being nice.

He stops when he can see inside the closet.

Shelves upon shelves of bottles filled with clear liquids, though there are differences in them if you knew how to look.

Virgil knows. He knows these kind of bottles all too well.

* * *

“Roman? Logan? You guys need to come upstairs, we have a problem.” Virgil calls down the stairs authoritatively.

That’s all it takes to key in the other two sides that something is definitely wrong. Virgil isn’t exactly fond of being commanding unless he thinks it’s absolutely necessary.

When he leads them to Patton’s closet - full of strange bottles - they aren’t entirely sure what it’s supposed to get from it.

“Patton sure …likes water?” Roman ventures.

“No!”

“Would you care to elaborate on your discovery and why we should be troubled by it?” Logan requests.

“Those are _emotions-”_

“He _is_ at the core of Thomas’ feelings-” Roman starts, still confused.

 _“Bottled up_ emotions.” Virgil continues.

“Oh.”

“How are you so sure?” Logan would like to have this backed up with data. Not that he doesn’t trust Virgil, but figuratively ‘jumping to conclusions’ has never proved useful.

“I used to do this. I know what they look like.” he turns, finding a bottle seemingly at random, “Here, see? This one is ‘anger’. See all the bubbles?”

Now that he’s pointed it out, they can see that it looks near boiling. They both reach out, drawing back in surprise when it’s hot to the touch.

“So all of these…” Roman trails off, taking in the many, many, _many_ shelves of bottles. Big and small, stuffed everywhere there’s room.

“Each and every one of them.” Virgil nods.

“How should we proceed?” Logan asks.

“Smash it!” Roman shouts, knocking one to the floor.

“Is that wise-”

“Not what I was going to say, but I can get behind that.” Virgil violently drops the anger to floor.

“Perhaps you should not do that.” Logan advises.

“You can’t run through a bottle with sword, so smashing it to bits is the next best option!” Roman argues.

“I cannot help but think that perhaps this approach may be negatively impacting Patton.” Logan pushes his glasses into place, “If you continue in this manner, he may become overwhelmed. The emotions seem to head in his direction once released-”

“Guys?” Patton peeks through the door, tear tracks present on his face. Evidently, Roman had knocked down some sadness.

“Patton!”

“What are you doing in here?” he sets the empty bottles in his arms down carefully, only noticing when he looks up that the closet is open - smashed bottles on the floor.

He stammers as he tries to come up with a plausible explanation, “Oh, I should have warned you kiddos! Those are fragile! I lock them up for a reason-”

“I know what they are Pat.” Virgil speaks, “You’ve been bottling up your emotions.”

Patton remains silent, but one of the empty bottles left in the closet fills up.

Panic.

“We aren’t mad.” Roman assures.

“Just worried about you. I thought we told you that you didn’t have to do this.” Virgil finishes for him.

“F-for Thomas’ emotions. N-not mine…” Patton tries to explain himself. Are they disappointed? Are they mad? This is _exactly_ why he didn’t want them to find out!

“Patton, it is unhealthy to ‘bottle up’ emotion - so to speak - in any circumstance. Given that you have returned with more empty bottles, you must be aware that this is not sustainable.”

“I’ll be fi-”

 _“This_ isn’t fine.” Virgil gestures at all the bottles, _“Why?”_

“I just… I don’t like feeling bad. I don’t want…” he trails off, hugging his arms to himself.

“Oh Pat.” Roman sighs sadly.

“Patton you are permitted to feel negative emotions.”

“But-”

“No. Logan’s right. You can feel however you want to feel, at any time. Trust me, it’s so much better than _this.”_ Virgil jerks his thumbs at the shelves.

“Really, we’d prefer that you tell us when you’re upset about something instead of just putting it here. You don’t have to keep it all inside.” Roman assures.

Patton sighs, “Okay.” he nods, “Okay. I’ll try not to do _that_ anymore.”

“That’s all we ask of you,” Roman smiles.

“What can we do about the existing bottles?” Logan turns to Virgil.

“Actually…” he scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, “All we can do is smash ‘em. Sorry Pat…”

So that’s what they do. Logan sits with Patton on his bed as Virgil and Roman knock every last bottle from the shelves. All the anger, and sadness, and guilt, and… there’s a lot of everything there. There’s even a few positive ones hidden away.

They decide they’ll end with the one Virgil identified as happiness.

Once they’ve finished, Roman fixes the bottles, returning them where they belong, changes the closet back to it’s usual size, and Patton has gotten his breathing back under control, the sides swarm him with hugs. Even Logan.

“A movie night!” Roman declares.

“It is not even midday-” Logan starts.

“A movie _day!”_ Roman corrects, “Comfy clothes and Disney for all!”

They pile on the couch with popcorn, fluffy blankets, pillows, and everything they’d usually have for a movie night.

It’s a good day.

Old habits die hard of course. It took time for Patton to adjust to not bottling everything up, but it didn’t have to be a secret anymore. The others would check on his closet every so often, to be sure it wasn’t getting out of control again.

Eventually, he got better at it. Virgil was right, he liked it so much better when he wasn’t constantly worrying about the bottles in his closet. Letting his emotions out wasn’t as bad as he’d worked himself up to believe.

Things are better this way, Patton is happier this way.

**Author's Note:**

> I was stuck on how to write an upcoming chapter of With Time. That combined with the fact that I'd had clearly spent too long in Miraculous Paris led to this! I don't like it a lot, but my friend won't let me not post it, so here it is! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> How do you know when you've spent too long in Miraculous Paris, you ask? Well, when you get yourself mad and then catch yourself thinking 'don't get mad, you don't want to get akumatized' it's a pretty good indicator, as there are two big things wrong with that: #1 It's a fictional story, and #2 I don't even live in Paris. I'm literally across the ocean.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://pandawritespoorly.tumblr.com/)! Thanks for reading, and constructive criticism is welcomed in the comments below! (Still working on that new sign off)


End file.
